Pussy Riot foes adopt its tactics

A group of Orthodox protesters attempted to give Pussy Riot supporters a taste of their own medicine, reports the Moscow Times:  A group of Orthodox Christian activists accompanied by an NTV camera crew burst into a theater event about punk band Pussy Riot and scolded those present, the show’s director said. The activists shouted "Repent!" and "Why do you hate the Russian people?" before ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

A group of Orthodox protesters attempted to give Pussy Riot supporters a taste of their own medicine, reports the Moscow Times

A group of Orthodox protesters attempted to give Pussy Riot supporters a taste of their own medicine, reports the Moscow Times

A group of Orthodox Christian activists accompanied by an NTV camera crew burst into a theater event about punk band Pussy Riot and scolded those present, the show’s director said.

The activists shouted "Repent!" and "Why do you hate the Russian people?" before being hustled out, Teatr.doc artistic director Mikhail Ugarov wrote on his Facebook page late Monday.

They attempted to mount the stage at the tiny theater near Patriarch’s Ponds but were stopped by audience members and tossed out after about 30 seconds, Novaya Gazeta reported.

In case you were wondering if the activists were arrested for "hooliganism" and imprisoned, they were not — and also appeared to be followed by a camera crew from state-controlled NTV.

Outside Russia, support for Pussy Riot has been pretty widespread and bipartisan, running the gamut from New York hipsters to right-wing journalists. Though a couple of exceptions, notably former New York mayor Ed Koch, have been coming out of the woodwork to say the band members got exactly what they deserved. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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